Heart Attack Pork Loin

I knew I was going to do a pork loin on the rotisserie, but I wanted to experiment with brining and some other stuff. First, here's the recipe - I tried to keep track of everything for blogging purposes...

Kickass Brine

4 cups water
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup kosher salt
1/2 red onion, sliced thinly
4 cloves of garlic, crushed up
2 oz of whiskey or bourbon
2 TBsp. of maple syrup
approx. 8 whole cloves
approx. 20 whole peppercorns (I used a mix of white, black, green, and red)
2 sticks of cinnamon, snapped in pieces
1 inch piece of ginger, sliced into smaller pieces

1. Throw everything into a saucepan.

2. Stir to combine the sugar and salt over medium high heat until it starts to boil.

3. Let it cool to at least room temperature before using.

The Pork

2 lb. center-cut pork loin roast
Bacon
Kickass Brine
2 cups water
1/2 cup apple juice

1. Put the roast into a bag or container with the brine. Make sure it's completely submerged, and toss it in the fridge for at least a couple of hours, but not more than 8 (unless you want this to taste like ham).

2. Remove from brine, rinse with cold water, and pat dry.

3. Take uncooked slices of bacon and wrap them around the entire roast. If you want to feel fancy, refer to this step as "larding the roast". Since I'm using a rotisserie and I don't want my bacon falling off, I'll try to tuck the ends and use toothpicks to secure anything left dangling.

4. Throw it on the rotisserie. This 60,000 BTU grill can get hot quick, so I'm going to position the meat on the far side of the grill, and turn only the far burner on med-low. The goal is to keep my cooking temp between 300-350 degrees. I'd recommend putting a drip pan under the roast, unless you want a grease inferno next time you cook. This can also be cooked using indirect heat if you don't have a rotisserie attachment for your grill. I got my rotisserie thing for $30 at Lowe's.

5. In my drip pan, I added the apple juice and water - the theory is this will make a
little sauce for the pork, although it should be plenty moist enough without it.

6. Cook it until the thickest part reads just under 160 on a meat thermometer. It took
about an hour.

Now for the pics....

The Brine on the Stove...

Pork + Brine

Pork Tag Team

All Wrapped Up...

On the Spit

Ideal Cooking Temp

Fuck Yeah

Unwrapped....

Sliced and Ready to Serve...

Some notes:

1. The "larding" was a pain in the ass - all the bacon started falling off when it was spinning, so I had to use a shitload of toothpicks to hold it on. This made me lose crucial heat from the grill as I scrambled to jab toothpicks in. Which leads to...

2. The bacon didn't crisp very well under the lower temperature (so it was limp and gross), so I removed the bacon before serving. Fear not, a few minutes in a skillet over medium heat made for a wonderful "side dish".

3. The sauce I was attempting to make was way too fatty to use. Had I had time to seperate some of the fat from it, it probably would have been OK.

4. If I do this again, I'll probably skip the bacon - the meat would be plenty moist with just the brine.

5. I need to get my fat ass back to the gym and stop babying this knee injury - I'm begging for a coronary with this kind of cooking.


Well, my first blog - not bad, I guess.